We Love PBS (Part I)

I was giving Ingrid a bath the other evening, and Henry was sitting just outside the open bathroom door, drawing with a blue marker. He called over to me to look at the lemon he had just drawn. Given the fact that Henry is four years old and was using a blue marker, I didn't expect his drawing to look much like a lemon, but when I looked up, I saw a very realistic blue lemon on the paper. I said, "Huh," and kind of chuckled before going back to bathing Ingrid. A few minutes passed before Henry asked me, "Mom, why did you laugh when I showed you my picture?" Of course, that nearly broke my heart, so I hurried to explain that I had just been so surprised because his drawing looked just like a lemon and that it was a very good picture. He thought about that for a few seconds before responding, "Oh. You were flabergasted." I told him that was exactly right. Later I remembered that more than a month earlier Henry seen an episode of "Word Girl," a show on PBS about a superhero with a superior vocabulary, that had featured the word "flabergasted." I was flabergasted that he not only remembered the word, but was able to use it correctly so much later!